Was Joseph a con man?

[Phil Lurkerman]

I am in the pious fraud camp. After reading Bushman's "Rough Stone Rolling" I am reasonably convinced that Joseph believed in what he was saying for the most part. I think he even deluded himself after a time. He modified his own memory due to the extreme social pressure of building this radical new church. One aspect of Joseph's personality that really came out in that biography was that Joseph was an extrovert who really did like to be surrounded by friends. His whiniest outbursts came from feeling let down by friends, especially when they left the church angrily. I think this kind of self imposed pressure led to him further doubling down on his personal belief in his own prophetic mantle. By the end, Joseph had conned himself.

I'm with Corsair on this one. I think we see this kind of behaviour in many religious, corporate, and political leaders who are talented, extroverted, gregarious, and enjoy the attention and praise of others. In time, they can convince themselves that they really are special and deserving of the mantle. Self-fulfilling prophets if you will.

Does the Pope believe he is the representative of the One True Church?

[MalcolmVillager]

Having spent some time around a fairly successful, we'll respected, and influencial person I have diagnosed as a sociopath, and read about Steve Jobs, who lived in a reality distortion field, I would say that JS was probably simultaneously a sociopath and a con man.

He knew he was making it up and taking advantage of people, yet he felt he was special and powerful. This justified the means and empowered the story.

This person I was close to could lie to everyone in a room, knw that we all knew he was lying, and flat out insist he wasn't lying. He felt he was above the truth. I. His mind he was never right. He is also a con man. It is amazing to watch. There are red flags all over the place and many willing to warn others of his MO, yet he continues to dupe more people out of money to start an ever growing series of failed companies that pay him large salaries.

I see JS the same. Despite the continued failings and wake of damage, he continued to double down and the story built itself.

There have been many others through history. Some have been evil or at least unstable, whIle others pulled off miracles before the implosion.

[Neo-Galileo]

I have never been comfortable with the word pious, used as pious fraud, when describing Joseph. I know that definitionally it is applicable, but the use of the word pious always seems to take the sting out of the fraud, to somehow soften its effect, to remove culpability, to elicit sympathy.

Joseph was a Fraud. He may have had high LDS Ends to achieve, but his LDS Means were pure fraud.

The Joseph portrayed by LDS HQ is a myth...he is Santa Claus, and was portrayed as such all the way up until LDS HQ could no longer control/suppress the information.

Now LDS HQ has juked/jived to admit Joseph's faults and shortcomings and mistakes and errors and even crimes. Then, they remind us that nobody is perfect. They ask us to overlook and to forgive and to sympathize. They tell us to Doubt our Doubts.

What LDS HQ cannot get themselves to do is to see that the things we are asked to overlook, the historical and circumstantial evidence, clearly show that Joseph was a Fraud. (I like it with a capital "F".)

It's like LDS HQ has it in their mind that by forgiving Joseph, somehow that makes him not a Fraud.

I forgive Joseph, as I forgive all people. And still, Joseph was a Fraud.

Neo-Galileo


p.s. Does the "broken clock is right twice a day" analogy apply? The clock is still broken.

[Rob4Hope]

Had an aha kindof moment last night drifting off to sleep. The idea of "anachronism" has never really jived with me...because it was a new concept I never really spent a lot of time thinking about. Then I remember watching an ex-mo conference with a linguist guy on there talking about the serious problems in the BoM from a word perspective, not even needing to take into account the North American archaeology problems.

2 things came to mind that I remembered from his speech: 1) the problem with blood and Nephi getting the clothing off of Laban and onto himself without making a BIG MESS; 2) the idea that Laban was out speaking to the brethren of the "church".

I had always wondered how Nephi did the clothing thing--I mean, Laban would have been squirting blood all OVER out of his neck. Nephi would have had to lift him from the bottom up to get his clothing off so that the blood flowed down. Oh really?...It just seemed so implausible. I can not see how anything like that would have happened, and how Nephi could have not gotten blood all over everything.

Then last night the idea of "church" popped into my head, and it stuck. They didn't have a "church" back then--there was no separation between religion and the political/cultural group back then. The whole idea of a "church" is completely out of place--its an anachronism. In fact, the linguist guy mentioned that the idea of "church" didn't even appear until centuries after JC came.

So,..BAM! ... there I was drifting off to sleep, and I woke up and GOT IT.

Where did JS get the manuscript he dictated and corrected over and over with Oliver?

He was a con. Total and complete con. I think he was delusional,...and the more "aha" moments I have, the more I think it.

JS is purported to have said: "The most correct of any book on earth." All it takes is a SINGLE anachronism to blow that "correct book" to pieces...and I've mentioned 2 problems only. There are HUNDREDS of problems....anachronism as well as historical, theological, archaeological, linguistical, social, structural, implausible, etc.